The challenge to improve academic achievement for community college students has generated concern for decades, with renewed emphasis during the Coronavirus Pandemic of 2020-2021, known as COVID-19 (Roueche, 1968; West & Fabre, 2021). National and local initiatives for student success have been launched with mixed results from a broad…

First-generation students are often underprepared for college and have lower persistence rates (Balemian & Feng, 2013), and they face a unique set of challenges in their transition to college that many of their peers do not (Pelco, Bell, & Lockeman, 2014). Consistent with national statistics, data obtained from UM's Office of Institutional…

The purpose of this study was to explore undergraduate mathematics teaching from the perspective of a graduate student serving as a first-time precalculus instructor of record. A multiple case study was designed to follow three mathematics graduate student instructors (MGSIs) through one semester of teaching to understand their goals for student…

The purpose of this program evaluation was to determine if students at a southern public academic health science center receiving a Title V education grant believe peer mentoring is beneficial and promotes student engagement. Two instruments were used for this evaluation. The Student Engagement Instrument -- College Version (SEI-C;Appleton,…

Educators, policy makers, and literacy experts alike have long been concerned with effective reading instruction. Students, however, must be engaged with their reading to make sufficient gains -- yet more traditional models of literacy instruction, typically seen at the secondary level, often fail to take into account the interests and needs of…

In this study, the researcher explored how doctoral-level faculty engaged students in online courses. Institutions of higher education are incorporating online degree programs in their strategies and should understand how to prepare faculty, especially new faculty, for facilitating online courses for nontraditional students using the learning…

Teacher perception has been demonstrated to be a key contributor to instructional practices within the classroom. As additional technologies become available to enhance and supplement instructional practices, game-based learning has emerged as an included component to classroom strategies for improved student achievement. With primary focus within…

There is currently an epidemic of high school readers who struggle; many are considered below-level readers, according to standardized tests, and they are not choosing to read for pleasure. The purpose of this case study was to evaluate whether a pedagogical framework called CRISP (choice, relevance, interest, success, and peer interactions) would…

Identification of novel fermenting yeast is beneficial to the brewing industry to develop innovations in flavor or processes. In addition, there is a growing interest in sour beers, which are traditionally produced with bacteria such as Lactobacillus and Pediococcus. Here, we characterize a novel yeast, lab strain 'GY7B', and its ability to…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the impact of blended professional development on teacher efficacy. The variables hours of blended learning, subjects taught, and years of experience were investigated. Additionally, teacher efficacy was analyzed across domains of student engagement, instructional practices, and classroom…

Higher education institutions are to teach advanced thinking skills that help students process information, make judgments, and justify associated beliefs. Such skills are necessary for reflective judgment according to the reflective judgment model (RJM). The purpose of this study was to explore whether engaging undergraduate students in classroom…

This study investigated classroom interaction in three novice-level Chinese language classrooms at middle and high schools in the US in the spring of 2021. Due to school responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, the participating teachers had shifted from teaching in a face-to-face, in-person classroom to fully online and partially online, hybrid…

Universities have increased the number of fully or partially online courses they offer to meet students' family, work-life, and academic needs. As a result of this shift, the HyFlex learning paradigm, which provides hybrid and flexible learning options, has gained traction in academia in recent years. The COVID-19 pandemic has altered the…

The purpose of this study was to examine the teacher self-efficacy of traditionally and alternatively-certified teachers and to determine if there is a perceived difference in levels of self-efficacy after the first-year of teaching in those teachers who completed a traditional certification program or an alternative certification program. The…

Middle school students love to talk in multiple social settings, but talking in science can be a different situation. With the shift required in teaching the Next Generation Science Standards, students are tasked with making sense of phenomena often much different than a traditional science classroom. Traditional Science classrooms are one that…